Watching the change first hand while diving into the data and being able to write about it has been a profound privilege and honor. I felt a profound responsibility to get it right and tell you what I was seeing and hearing.

在 Balding 去過的多個國家中，他感覺中國是最獨特的一個：

Other countries have been to in Asia, developed and developing, and even Africa seem less disorienting and culturally dissimilar. This is both exhilarating, exciting, frustrating, amusing and tiring. My wife and I would frequently joke that every day you lived in China you would see something you had never seen before.

他認爲中國的文化對個人和他人完全缺乏尊重，這也導致中國人不願意遵守任何法律、規定、社會規範 (出於自利的動機)。

There is a complete and utter lack of respect for the individual or person in China. People do not have innate value as people simply because they exist… This leads most directly to a lack of respect for the law/rules/norms… They are ignored quietly so as not to embarrass the enforcer, however, frequently, the enforcer knows rules or laws are being ignored but so long as the breaker is not egregious, both parties continue to exist in a state of blissful ignorance.

What results from tribal fighting is an erosion of principles where sides fight over who is worse or less bad rather than fighting to uphold principles.

在中國以他的經驗，幾乎沒有一個人，不管是中國本地人還是外國人，能夠在行動上堅守他自稱自己保有的信念：

In China, there are very few people who I witness live a testament of their belief… Foreigners in China in positions of influence who claim to believe in human rights but collaborate with the Party to deny Chinese citizens rights need to answer for their actions. I have little idea what people in China believe but I know that if the Party ever falls, there will be more than a billion more people claiming they were closet democracy advocates.

他也知道自己能從中國全身而退已經算是幸運：

One of my biggest fears living in China has always been that I would be detained… I know I am blessed to make it out.

他警告中國的威權政府是對全世界相信自由民主、人權、開放的國際市場集體的重大威脅，應當被嚴正對待：

China is a rising power but probably more importantly is a deeply illiberal, expansionist, authoritarian, police state opposed to human rights, democracy, free trade, and rule of law… The rise of China represents a clear and explicit threat not to the United States but to the entirety of liberal democracy, human rights, and open international markets.